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We have infiltrated party: KKK

Erik Jensen

THE Ku Klux Klan says it has infiltrated an anti-immigration party preparing to contest seats at the next federal election.

David Palmer, the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in Australia, said several Klan members had secretly joined Australia First, a far right party that announced yesterday that it had the numbers to register as a political party.

"We aren't interested in actually registering as a party," Mr Palmer said. "Our main idea was we would move in and take back what we consider our Aryan parties. [The Klan] is a white pressure group; a white social group for white families. But also a reserve in case the ethnics get out of hand and they need sorting out."

When he made similar claims about the infiltration of One Nation, the party formerly led by Pauline Hanson, two of his associates were expelled from the party. The NSW director of Australia First, Jim Saleam, vehemently denies his party has been infiltrated by the Klan.

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Mr Palmer said: "Members don't necessarily have to be Christian. As long as they're white it's OK."

Early yesterday the NSW Treasurer, Eric Roozendaal, negotiated a deal with the Labor Party's national secretary to guarantee no Labor preferences would go to Australia First.

The Liberal Party's internal procedures do not allow a guarantee to be made so swiftly, but its federal director, Brian Loughnane, said Australia First would not benefit from Liberal preferences. Mr Roozendaal said: "One Nation got a foothold in Queensland due to one factor - Coalition preferences. This must not occur again."

Australia First and another far right party, the Australian Protectionist Party, look set to contest the next election on an anti-immigration platform. Beneath them is a miasma of other radical groups consolidating their membership and building numbers in the face of economic instability. Some members shift between groups. Other groups divide over disputes about where to direct their efforts. Some, like One Nation, collapse and are re-absorbed by remaining groups.

Mr Saleam said the registration of his party would lead smaller groups or factions to start to see Australia First as a "focus point".

Mr Palmer said there were three branches of the Klan in NSW, but he would not say where. Nor would he say how many members were active, but said each Klan meeting attracted about 20 members.

Late last year a second arm of the Klan - calling itself the Church of the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Australia and New Zealand Realms - set up an internet forum moderated in Victoria. It dissociates itself from Mr Palmer but has strong links to the Klan in the US.

"We grow every day," said the Victorian church's female recruiting officer. "It's not about hate, it's about being proud of the skin we live in - proud in what our race is."

Australia First has denied links to the skinhead movement, which has expanded its front in Australia by setting up an internet radio station and a record label.

Mr Saleam and the Protectionist Party have expressed interest in approaching the key youth movement - the Southern Cross Soldiers, formed by high school students in Kellyville before the Cronulla Riots in 2005 - but the soldiers' leader has denied the connection.